‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Will Finally Allow Starfleet Crews to Be Jerks

Fifty years of Star Trek means endless tweaks to Gene Roddenberry’s idyllic vision of the future, and Star Trek: Discovery will add a major one. Despite a prior franchise mandate, the new CBS iteration will apparently allow Starfleet crew to actually conflict with one another; not just alien warships.

Entertainment Weekly clarifies that for fifty-one years, the Star Trek franchise has more-or-less followed a basic guideline that Starfleet crew members shouldn’t conflict with one another in petty ways, or “demonstrate baser human flaws.” As showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg explain, Star Trek: Discovery will do away with this “Roddenberry’s Box,” so as to better create ongoing drama for the show:

We’re trying to do stories that are complicated, with characters with strong points of view and strong passions. People have to make mistakes — mistakes are still going to be made in the future. We’re still going to argue in the future.

The rules of Starfleet remain the same. But while we’re human or alien in various ways, none of us are perfect.

As the piece also explains, Discovery’s emphasis on serialized stories over standalone episodes means the crew won’t be seeking out new life and new civilizations from week to week, and will therefore need to mine drama from existing characters. As Harberts adds, “The thing we’re taking from Roddenberry is how we solve those conflicts.”

We’ll have to wait until at least September to see the Discovery crew at each other’s throats, so stay tuned for more on the upcoming premiere.